Roast Chicken Recipe - Restaurant Inspired

Recipe: Roast Chicken Recipe »

This is not your average roast chicken! This roast chicken is brined and slow roasted for maximum juiciness, then finished with a rich fish sauce caramel that will knock your socks off. This restaurant style roast chicken is perfect for entertaining or special occasions. With chef tips for tender meat, crispy skin and incredible flavour.

About This Roast Chicken Recipe

This roast chicken is all about restaurant techniques but is easily done in a home oven. These are easy techniques gleaned from some of the best chefs in the world. First a chicken is brined and then stuffed with a scallop and prawn mousse and roasted on a very low heat based on a Heston Blumenthal method to keep it incredibly succulent and juicy. It is then served with a delicious butter caramel sauce that takes 5 minutes to make!

This roast chicken was inspired by a few dishes - firstly the roast chicken at Ursula's in Paddington. I had heard that the chicken was legendary and at $120 for two, you would want it to be. Laura and I went to try it and it was nice but sadly they hadn't stuffed it with mousse that night but they did give us some tips about how the chicken was made. I also changed the sauce for this to a fish sauce caramel that Laura told me about by Eric Kim via the NY Times Food. He made it with roast chicken thighs but I thought that it would go so well with this whole chicken and it turned out even better than I thought with a couple of adaptions!

Why You'll Love This Roast Chicken

The chicken is so succulent and the breast isn't dry at all thanks to the brining and low roasting temp.

It's an occasion dish so it is perfect with Mother's Day coming up. Save this for a weekend cook (I wouldn't make this for a weeknight dinner or you will be eating way too late).

There's nothing fancy or hard to procure to make this roast chicken.

The fish sauce caramel is amazing - have you ever tried Pok Pok's chicken wings? Same thing with the fish sauce caramel!

You just leave the chicken to slow cook for 4 hours without really doing anything. And the sauce can be cooked in 5 minutes while the chicken is resting!

This roast chicken reheats really well. Place chicken pieces in a dish on a rack with some water at the bottom and cover with foil. Bake at 170C/340F for 15-25 minutes or until warmed through (go for an internal temperature of 74C/165F).

Video How To Make Roast Chicken

Video: How to Make Roast Chicken Super Tender

Ingredients For Roast Chicken Recipe

Chicken - A whole chicken - at Ursula's they use a Bannockburn chicken which you can find at specialty chicken stores and butchers.

Salt - We use fine pink salt.

Olive oil - Extra virgin only please (it's the best quality)

Seafood - My favourite is a 50/50 combination of scallops and prawns, both raw.

Egg white - 1 egg white is perfect for this.

Cream - Thickened, pure or single cream.

Soy sauce - Regular light soy sauce.

Brown sugar - Light brown sugar.

Fish sauce - Vietnamese fish sauce.

Lemon juice - Fresh or bottled lemon juice.

Butter - Salted only (you know me!).

Garlic powder - Found in the spice aisle (tip: store in the freezer to avoid clumping!).

Chives - go wild on those fresh chives!

Tips For Making Roast Chicken Recipe

1 - You can brine the chicken for 1-2 days depending on how much time you have.

2 - Be careful with salting the chicken-it has already been salt brined and the sauce is quite salty too. I usually serve it with salt at the table so that people can add salt if they want.

3 - I love the mousse because it makes it really special but if its too much and all you want is a simple dish, you can omit the mousse and just make this the best roast chicken with a fish sauce butter!

4 - Honestly this is a weird one but it helps when doing the final browning stage to make sure that your oven is clean. You're going to turn the oven onto maximum heat for 15 minutes so you don't want the burnt bits at the bottom to burn and smoke because that will set off your smoke alarm.

5 - Serve this with a green salad, roast potatoes or buttery mashed potatoes.

Other roast chicken dishes to try next are: my classic roast chicken with trimmings (super popular), rotisserie style roast chicken on garlic bread, Roast Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves, Easy Chicken Pot Roast and the famous Zuni Cafe roast chicken with Bread Salad.

Roast Chicken Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 1-2 days brining and 15 minutes resting

Cooking time: 4.5 hours

Serves: 4 with sides

This recipe is best started 24-48 hours ahead of time for brining

Ingredients Needed

For Chicken

• 1.5kg/3.3lb chicken
• 150g/5oz fine or kosher salt
• 1.5 litres/1.6 quarts water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

For Mousse

• 50g/1.7oz scallops, raw
• 50g/1.7oz prawn meat, raw
• 1 egg white (about 30g/1oz)
• 60ml/2fl oz cream
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce

For Sauce

• 45g/1.6oz brown sugar
• 45g/1.6oz fish sauce
• 30ml/1oz lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 135g/4.7oz butter
• 3 tablespoons chopped chives

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 BRINING - 1-2 days ahead of time brine the chicken. Dissolve the salt in 1 cup of hot water from a kettle. Then top up with cold water to this mixture (I also throw in some ice cubes) to bring the temperature down quickly. Submerge the chicken in this. If the container is large and your chicken isn't completely submerged, make sure to submerge the breast side. Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 days.

Step 2 BUTTERFLY - Drain chicken of the brine (no need to rinse) and pay dry with paper towels until very dry (the dryer the better for crispy skin). Then using sharp kitchen scissors, cut all the way down the backbone of the chicken and lay it out butterflied and flat. Press down on the chicken to flatten it. Place on a baking dish with a rack. Set aside on kitchen bench while you prepare the mousse.

Step 3 MOUSSE - Preheat oven to 100C/212F fan forced or 120C/248F conventional. In a food processor blend the scallops, prawns, egg white, cream and soy sauce until you get a light, moussey texture. Thermomix directions: 15 seconds, speed #6). Using a tablespoon separate the skin from the meat to create as large a pocket as possible. Spoon the mousse inside this cavity. Brush with 1 tablespoon of oil and roast for 4 hours uncovered. Halfway, brush another tablespoon of oil on the skin.

Step 4 BROWN - Turn the oven up to its maximum temperature (home ovens usually go up to 240C/464F). Open up the windows and remove the batteries from your smoke alarm as it may smoke a bit. Brush 1 more tablespoon of oil on the skin and roast for 15 minutes until golden. Not all of the chicken will turn as golden as the breasts but that's ok. Remove and cover with foil and rest for 15 minutes while you make the sauce.

Step 5 SAUCE - Place the brown sugar, fish sauce, lemon juice and garlic powder in a small saucepan and heat on medium heat. Simmer for 2-3 minutes or until reduced by half. Remove from heat. Then whisk the butter into the sauce until it has completely melted and you have a gorgeous glossy caramel sauce.

Step 6 SERVE - Carve up the chicken into pieces (see this video on how to carve up a turkey). Pour the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with chives. Replace batteries in smoke alarm! ;)

Personal Note

Eagle eyed readers will notice one thing in the video above for making this chicken. That is a nail polish colour during the chicken prep and the final carving of the chicken. I was not kidding when I said that you don't have to do a lot while it is slow roasting.

So much so that during this time I left to get my nails done. I don't like waiting around for things and I am often trying to do three things at once. Like when the kettle is filling with water from the filter you can bet I am putting something away from the drying rack or washing something.

So with 4 hours of roasting in my future, I told Mr NQN that I'd be back soon. "There's a chicken in the oven but you don't have to do anything about it!" I told him.

And in 1.5 hours I was back in plenty of time to baste the chicken halfway.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you brine chicken before cooking it? And have you ever tried a fish sauce butter before? And are you a multitasker?